A man’s coming and going is lonely and secret, and yet all of his going and coming seems to have been with companions, strangers who fell in beside him because they were coming or going, too, strangers he knew instantly, with whom communication began without reference to who spoke or who listened, and yet a man was always alone, and the stranger who was an instantaneous friend was also alone.
A man has no years. He is instantly and continuously himself and that flash of time which is the moment coming to him, reaching him, and leaving him. He has no years, for a man cannot cease to be who he is until, he is dead and who he is is who he is instantly, standing there, holding the hands of his dying mother, looking into her eyes, saying something to her without words, saying something with words, something that means something more than what the words say, saying to her, “Hang on, Mama, there’s nothing better to do if you can do it. There’s nothing better than to read the Armenian papers that come every morning. But if you can’t hang on, don’t regret anything. Don’t regret the deterioration of each of us. It happens, Mama. The Armenian papers are going to accumulate if you’re not there, and there’s not going to be anybody to read them. The postman’s going to bring them every morning with your name on them, so if you can do it hang on, and read them a few years longer. See the boy in New York when he’s a man. See the girl when she’s a woman. See Ann again, listen to her talking and laughing again, listen to a lovely girl who is a liar and be delighted with one of your kind, one of the best of your kind. If you can hang on, Mama, and love her, let her know you love her, let her know again. There’s bread to bake, Mama, so if you can, hang on.”
A man has no years. He is a coming and going thing, arriving and departing at the same time all his life, alone and speechless and full of secret wisdom and ignorance in the suspended instant when the coming is almost but not quite the going, and the best that he has ever said is without words, with the mute but living flesh of himself, with the hands and eyes, speaking no language better than the language of the speechless animals.
He went alone to St. Anne’s of the Sunset four hours after he reached San Francisco, knelt there, and prayed as an animal must pray. “I have this woman, this girl, who is my mother, who carried me inside her flesh, and a secret thing has happened to her that I know must happen to every woman, every girl, every man’s mother. I would rather this thing did not finish this woman now, for I believe she does not wish it, and there is more for her to read. I would rather, I would rather she were here this summer, for it is fine then, not cold and gray as it is now, in February. We have spoken to one another from time to time, but there is more to be said, and I would rather it were said.”
He drove from St. Anne’s to the St. Francis Hospital and went to his mother’s room. His sister was there, standing over her mother, watching her sleeping face. The nurse was not there. She was out for a cup of coffee.
“She’s in a coma again,” his sister said. “It happened a couple of hours ago. Is Mama dying, Rock?”
“No,” he said.
“Rock, is she dying?”
“No, this is part of what we’re waiting for.”
“Do you understand these things, Rock?”
“No.”
“Old Lula lived to be almost ninety, Rock,” his sister said. “Mama’s a strong woman. There’s never been a stronger woman than Mama. Does she look as if she’s going to come home, Rock? Does her face look like the face of somebody who’s going to stay?”
Her face did not look like the face of somebody who was going to stay. He remembered his son Haig’s face when his son had just been born. That was an angry face, the face of a man who was going to stay. He remembered his daughter’s face when his daughter had just been born. That was a petulant face, all twisted out of shape because she was a woman just out of a woman, and it was a face of a woman who was going to stay. His mother’s face did not look like the face of somebody who was going to stay. Her face said one thing, “Now I am altogether alone. I have seen it all. It was all unfortunate. I regret it, I pity it. I sleep. I am alone. I am going.”
“Does Mama look all right, Rock?”
“I never saw her when she didn’t look as she looks now,” he said.
“Mama’s a serious woman,” his sister said. “Mama’s proud. She’s the proudest woman I know. Is Mama going to stay, Rock?”
“I don’t know, Vava.”
“I’m sorry about Sark in the car,” his sister said. “I’m sorry about that, Rock.”
“He only wanted Mama to see me looking well,” Rock said.
“What did Mama say?” his sister said. “What did she say to you, Rock?”
“The things she has always said,” he said. “Listen, Vava. I want to have another talk with the doctor. Where is he?”
“He was here an hour ago,” Vava said. “He’s done everything he can do. We’ve just got to wait, he said. He’s home.”
“I’ll telephone him,” Rock said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
He went downstairs because he didn’t want to use the telephone in the room, didn’t want his sister to hear his questions.
“What is it?” he said.
“I wouldn’t tell any other member of the family,” the doctor said, “but it isn’t good, Rock. She went into a coma soon after she spoke to you. We decided not to tell her you were coming. It was my idea.”
“Is it fifty-fifty?” Rock said.
“No, Rock,” the doctor said, “but we don’t know very much about dying, about who dies, and when, and how. It’s different each time. From what we do know it isn’t fifty-fifty. I’m hoping she’ll come out of it. Her temperature isn’t down. It’s up. I’m hoping the next twenty-four hours will see a miracle happen.”
“A miracle?”
“Yes, Rock. She’s still bleeding. It may have stopped for a few hours. She may be bleeding from another part of the vein now, or even from another vein. I think she knew you would be coming and was waiting for you. I’ve been her doctor almost ten years, Rock. I know her nature. I wish there was something wonderful I could say that you could pass along to the rest of the family. I’m coming by again in an hour or so.”
“What is her temperature?” Rock said.
“It’s never been lower than a hundred and four,” the doctor said.
“Was it a hundred and four when she spoke to me?” Rock said.
“Yes, or higher,” the doctor said. “I think she was waiting to see you and speak to you. She herself may not have known it. I can’t otherwise account for her not having gone into a coma earlier.”
“Is she in pain? Herself?”
“Well, she’s in a coma, and she’s supposed to be insensitive to pain, but we don’t know about that, either. I don’t know, Rock.”
“What about surgery?” Rock said.
“I had one of the best men in early in the day,” the doctor said. “No. Surgery can’t help. Will you be there?”
“Yes,” Rock said.
He was there when the doctor took some more fluid from her spine.
“I don’t know,” the doctor said. “There’s no telling.”
They went out into the hall and talked, then into the street. The doctor went home. Rock went back upstairs and stood over the bed and watched his mother’s face.
“What’s he say, Rock?” his sister said. “What’s the doctor say?”
“We have to wait,” Rock said.
At two in the morning he went out into the street, then drove to the house he’d built for her. There were three Armenian papers on the table in the hall: The Asbarez from Fresno, The, Hairenik from Boston, and Nor Giyonk from Paris: Horizon, Homeland, and New Life. There would be other papers, too, from other cities. The print would not stop. The language would not stop. He took The Asbarez, sat in the chair in the hall, and read it for half an hour, as if he were able to read. He looked at the print of each word as if he were reading. He then went downstairs to his apartment and wandered around there among his junk.
There beside the fireplace was the pianola he’d bought years ago because he had heard pianolas in Fresno, at three weddings of members of his family, and she had always liked that music. There were the shelves filled with the books he had accumulated over the years. There was the framed picture of his father, thirty-three years old, the ends of his moustache curved upward, his eyes intense. There was the framed picture of all of them together: Vahan, Araxi, Arak, Vava, and Haig.
He put a match to the paper of the waiting fire in the fireplace, turned off the light, sat in the chair that had been his father’s, and watched the fire until it was almost finished. He then went upstairs and took the cloth from the tubful of dough and smelled the dough. He stood over the mass of fermenting dough and breathed the odor of it.
What does a man think? What does he think of himself? What does he think of his father, his mother, his sister, his brother, his family, his race, his religion, his birthplace, his nationality, his class, his profession? What does he think of his life, his own life, the going and coming of life in his own head and hide? What does he think of his own breathing? What does he think he wants? What does he think he can get? What does he think there is to be got? (Bread. There’s bread. Water. There’s water. Shoes. There’s shoes to put the feet into, to stand upon, to walk in. They’re thoughtful, clever things, a man’s own shoes. Peace. There’s peace to stand in as if they were shoes, to walk in, to kick at things with. There’s kicking. There’s kicking about the peace that’s hardly worth the standing in. Death. There’s death to get, to get like new shoes, to get like peace, to put the feet in, to stand in, to walk in, to walk off in.)
What does a man think when he isn’t thinking? What does he think when he is thinking, when he thinks he’s thinking? What does he think when he is being thought, when all of him, when all of his body and life and time is being thought by the one who gave birth to him, lying in a bed in a hospital, in a coma, dying? What does he think when he’s being thought by the dying one who, not so long ago, made him? What does he think then, at three o’clock in the morning, wandering around the house he made for her?
What does he think when the coma of death in his mother thinks him, thinks him whole, thinks him from long before she met his father, from long before his mother and his father were together for themselves and for whoever it might be, and it turned out to be himself? What does he think when he is being thought alive and real by the one who once, young and alive and beautiful then, rubbed him into a flame within the secret of herself, burned with him, and put him forth to burn alone, to put the fire into one of her kind, for another of his kind? What does he think when the keeper of the flame lies dying, with the secret of the flame dying in her, and thinks him whole?
My girl’s dead, he thought. She’s gone. She’ll not come here again. She’ll not come here to bake the bread again.
He slept on the couch across from the fireplace in his study, his own sleep a coma. He got up after a couple of hours, shaved and showered and put on fresh clothes—clothes he hadn’t worn in years, still hanging in the closet of his bedroom.
It was half past seven when he got to her room. His sister sat up in bed, still asleep.
“She awoke twice during the night,” she said, “but I don’t know, I don’t know, Rock.”
“What did she say?” Rock said.
“Well, once she said, ‘Shame,’” his sister said.
“That’s the fight I had with Papa that time,” Rock said. “I didn’t want to fight him. I’m sorry, Vava.”
“Oh, Rock,” his sister said. “That wasn’t your fault. She said some other things, too. Names, I mean. Names I don’t know. I guess they’re people she knew in the old country. Ahlkhatoon. Who’s Ahlkhatoon?”
“That’s Mama’s aunt,” Rock said, “that she used to know when she was a little girl, that she loved so much.”
“She said the names of some places, too, I think,” his sister said. “Tsopper-Gore.”
“That’s the name of the spring,” Rock said, “where they used to get their water.”
“She said our names,” his sister said, “all of them, and the second time, Rock, Mama almost cried. Mama’s a proud woman. Mama doesn’t cry. There were tears in her eyes, though, and I cried. I talked to her, but she didn’t know what I was saying. Her eyes were open, Rock, but I don’t think Mama knew it was me. I don’t think she saw me. I’m sick, Rock. I’m scared.”
She began to sob softly.
“I want to go home,” she said. “I want to see my damn kids.”
“I’ll take you home,” Rock said.
“Oh, Rock,” his sister said. “What is it? Did you ever see such kids as my kids? All big and smiling, all good?” She pointed at the woman on the bed. “What is it, Rock? For God’s sake, Rock, is that Mama? Mama’s proud, Mama’s the proudest woman I ever saw. Is this something to happen to Mama, lying there that way? This stupid room. The stupid dark of this room. These stupid walls.”
She suddenly burst into terrible sobbing.
“I want to take Mama home,” she said. “For God’s sake, Rock, let Mama die in her own bed, in her own house.”
She stopped suddenly, ashamed and angry at herself.
“I’ll go out until you get dressed,” Rock said. “I’ll take you home.”
“No,” his sister said. “I’ll take a taxi. You stay here. I’ll send Dovey. Mama loves Dovey.”
He went out into the hall and stood at the window looking down at the hospital parking lot, where the doctors left their cars. There was only one car in the whole lot, space for twenty-four. Further off, hanging on a clothesline, were two pairs of a man’s winter underwear, three shirts, four pairs of socks, and a woman’s skirt and blouse. There were other lines, but without things hanging on them.
His sister came out of the room.
“I thought I’d telephone the priest, Zadik,” she said. “You remember him. He was at the engagement party the other night that Mama had such a fine time at. I thought I’d telephone him to get his cross and robe and cap and book and come here.”
“Yes,” Rock said.
“I’ll ask him to take a taxi,” she said.
“No,” Rock said. “You tell him to wait for me, and when Dovey comes, I’ll go get him. I know where the church is.”
“I ought to come back for that, Rock,” his sister said, “but I’m so sick.”
“You don’t have to come back,” Rock said. “I’ll stand with him. I’ll ask the nurse to leave, but if Dovey wants to stand, too, she can.”
“All right, Rock,” his sister said, and went.
Rock went back into the room and looked at her face again. It was another face altogether now. The pride, the regret, the compassion, the resignation, the pity were all gone. They had been driven out of her face by the pain of death, by the secret struggle of a woman with death.
Still, he believed she might come to the miracle the doctor had spoken of. She might struggle through the pain and away from the death.
The nurse now was the German one, the deaf one, a woman older than his mother.
“She’s the same,” the nurse said, even though he hadn’t asked. “She’s not in pain.”
His niece came, a big girl with a sweet face, now bewildered and hurt. Rock went off to the church and found the priest Zadik inside, waiting. They spoke in English, then in Armenian, the priest explaining that in the Armenian church there was no hell, but not saying there was also no heaven. He explained the difference between what he would soon do and what a Roman Catholic priest would do. They went upstairs and Rock’s niece got the nurse out of the room, then came back and stood at the foot of the bed. Rock stood at his mother’s head, opposite the priest, now in robe and cap, the open book in one hand, the cross in the other.
“Araxi Vagramian,” the priest began softly, then went on in classic Armenian, a language Rock only half-understood, the written language, as it was called, the language of the church.
He drove the priest back
to the church, then returned to the hospital. The doctor was there then.
“I don’t know, Rock,” he said. “I can’t say. I won’t say.”
The next day Sark telephoned Rock early in the morning to tell him that Vava was sick and Dr. Lowell was coming to see her. He went over and saw his sister come downstairs in a robe. She was pale and stunned, and seemed to be shivering. She went to him and he embraced her.
“Rock,” she said. “Something terrible happened in my sleep. I woke up and hollered, ‘No. No.’ I had to. Poor Sark. My poor kids. I scared them all.”
“Mama’s going to get better,” Sark said. “You wait and see.”
“Oh, Sark,” his sister said. “For God’s sake, Sark.”
“Mama’s a strong woman,” Rock’s brother-in-law said. “She’s not going to let a little thing like this stop her. She’ll be home in a week, bawling everybody out, especially Rock.”
“You don’t know what’s happened to Mama,” Vava said.
“I don’t care what’s happened,” Sark said. “I don’t care what the doctor says. I don’t care what anybody says. Mama’s going to get better, that’s all.”
The doctor came and told Rock and Sark what it was. Rock understood what it was. It was supposed to be oxygen now, dextrose and water through the veins, but he knew.
When the doctor had gone Sark said, “See, Rock? This oxygen and all that other stuff means Mama’s getting better.”
Rock got in his car with Joe and drove back to the hospital.
The hours, the days, and the nights went by one by one.
The rubber tube from the oxygen tank was taped to his mother’s face, the end of it into a nostril.
Her veins were pierced again and again for the dripping of water and dextrose into her burning body.
Rock Wagram Page 21